The recently discovered YouTube video of a US Marine in Iraq throwing a yelping puppy from a cliff is deeply disturbing.
But what is more disturbing - the video or our reaction?
Because the reaction has been furious. Death threats have been made against the marine and his sister’s family and they’ve had to disconnect their phone and alert police. Comments on our article have been incandescent in their rage.
"The disturbing video warning is an extreme understatement... I broke down into tears," said Belle from South Australia
"I hope I never cross this guy on the street because I'll go to jail!" threatened Tammy from Harrisburg.
"Whoever did this should be shoot [sic] in the knee caps to share the pain and suffering that that puppy did," claimed Alex Touge Kid from Venice.
Are the people behind this outpouring of anger as fired up about the terrible plight of the people of Iraq? Are they out there protesting against the war?
In fact, when LIVENEWS.com.au discovered the video there was even debate in the newsroom about whether we should put it on our site.
Some journalists were determined it shouldn’t. Why?
We publish graphic videos, photos and reports of human tragedies all the time. Bombings in Iraq, school shootings in America, natural disasters, and torture in Abu Ghraib… the list goes on.
That’s what we do here: give you unashamedly uncensored news.
But no, apparently this was different.
It’s a scary thought, but are people more disturbed by a puppy’s death in Iraq than the plight of the country’s people who are routinely killed by bombs aimed at US troops? People who live in a perpetual state of civil war? Whose country has been invaded and where thousands have been needlessly killed? An illegal war started by the West.
Unfortunately, I think they are.
But does this mean we care less about these people’s suffering?
Well, not really, according to research psychologist Dr Mem Mahmut. It’s just that we’re desensitised to seeing human beings in pain.
“It’s very hard to take in what happens to other people without being affected by it so when we see other humans going through pain or being killed we protect ourselves by blocking out the gravity of the act,” Dr Mahmut told LIVENEWS.com.au.
“If we saw animals tortured and in pain as often as we do humans we might still think the act abhorrent but we’re not having the same emotional reaction.”
Whether Dr Mahmut is right or not is difficult to tell. Everyone would like to believe that people are more concerned about the death and suffering of human beings than of animals. Perhaps it is just easier to condemn one stupid act of cruelty than a gigantic senseless invasion of an entire nation.
But then perhaps we’re simply deluding ourselves, blocking out the possibility that to some people killing a cute puppy is worse than the suffering of nameless foreigners in a distant land.